County Communities That Care group unveils action plan

The York County Communities That Care (CTC) recently presented its 2011 Community Action Plan to the public, and YorkCounts was pleased to play a small role in analyzing the 2009 Pennsylvania Youth Survey responses and to draft a report that made up a piece of the final action plan.

Nearly 12,000 students from 15 of York County's 16 school districts participated in the first countywide CTC PAYS survey. Students in grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 participated, and the next survey will be circulated later this year.

The survey serves as a way to measure student attitudes on an array of issues and to use their responses to identify priorities for community action. As a result of the 2009 survey, York County's CTC has decided to focus the community's attention on a couple of areas.

The data assessment workgroup that I served on identifed two factors that put kids at risk for problems and two factors that protect kids from problems:

Risk factors

• Parental attitudes favorable toward anti-social behavior
• Family conflict

Protective factors

• Community opportunities for pro-social involvement
• Community rewards for pro-social involvement

The data assessment group also identified three problem behaviors that should be addressed:

• Attacking someone with intent to harm
• Being drunk or high at school
• Depression and anxiety

In response, CTC leaders developed a coordinated plan to address these risk and protective factors and problem behaviors. This is really the crux of the action plan, and the work will happen mainly through three organizations: Big Brothers Big Sisters of York County, the Strengthening Families Program, and John Hopkins' Adolescent Depression Awareness Program.

Here's a video about ADAP.


You can find the entire action plan and the results of the 2009 York County PAYS survey on our Web site. This is absolutely some of the most important work happening in York County today, and I'd encourage you to take a look at both documents.

- Dan Fink